Bad year for rhubarb

My rhubarb is kind of spindly this year and not as thick as it was last year. I am wondering if this is due to the scant precipitation we have had this year. Perhaps it will get thicker over the next few weeks but I do not see even enough for a pie there.

It might be a rough year for some plants. My usually abundant producing, wild, black raspberry plants are pretty much gone, seem to have died over this past mild winter.

Concerned with how the fields look out here in Lasalle, Grundy & Bureau counties. Soil is getting parched and cracked it is so dry.

Our asparagus barely produced at all this year.

Maybe it's a microclimate thing but two of my rhubarb are producing like crazy and are already finished flowering. A third plant is in an entirely different location and is hardly producing at all.

The two good ones are well mulched and get a lot of sun, the poorly producing one is in a raised bed and is an older plant. I thought it might need dividing and am planning to try that this fall.

Our rhubarb is doing great this year. My wife actually made a strawberry, rhubarb pie last night that came out great.

She was asking me what else we can use it in so I told her I'd ask here. Anyone have any interesting ideas? I was actually wondering how substituting it for celery in a chicken soup would work out.

Any ideas we can try would be appreciated. Our 2 plants grow like crazy every year and a lot of it usually goes to waste. We're trying to remedy that this year.

do not substitute it for celery. there are plenty of things to make from rhubarb. Look up a rhubarb cake. Its like a coffee cake with streusel on the top. Then you can mix it with straw berries, raspberries or apples and make a rhubarb crisp which is delicious. My grandfather would make a rhubarb compote. he would stew it with sugar and maybe strawberries and put it in the refrigerator and eat it like applesauce.

gorack wrote:Our rhubarb is doing great this year. My wife actually made a strawberry, rhubarb pie last night that came out great.

She was asking me what else we can use it in so I told her I'd ask here. Anyone have any interesting ideas? I was actually wondering how substituting it for celery in a chicken soup would work out.

Any ideas we can try would be appreciated. Our 2 plants grow like crazy every year and a lot of it usually goes to waste. We're trying to remedy that this year.

I would pickle it or compote it before subbing it for celery. It is too sour to work the way celery works. Pickled rhubarb is great as part of a cheese plate or a garnish for meat (as is compote). You can also make syrup of it for cocktails or mocktails.

When I was a kid, rumor had it you could smoke rhubarb like marijuana. Come to find, that is not true

Glad to hear that your rhubarb is doing well this year. If you clean it and chop it into smaller pieces, it freezes well so that you can enjoy it year-round.

If you still need recipes, the following is a favorite. There are a lot of steps in making this cake, but it is worth the effort.

Rhubarb-Ribbon Streusel Cake
adapted from Taste of Home April/May 2006, p31
http://www.tasteofhome.com/Recipes/Rhub ... runch-Cake
12 Servings
Prep: 30 min. Bake: 1 hour + cooling

Ingredients

RHUBARB LAYER:
3/4 cup sugar
3 tablespoons cornstarch
1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/8 teaspoon ground nutmeg
1/3 cup cold water
2½ cups sliced fresh or frozen rhubarb
3 to 4 drops red food coloring, optional

In a large saucepan, combine the sugar, cornstarch, cinnamon, nutmeg and water until smooth. Add rhubarb. Bring to a boil; cook and stir for 2 minutes or until thickened. Add food coloring if desired. Set aside to cool.

BOTTOM CAKE LAYER BATTER:
2-1/4 cups all-purpose flour
3/4 cup sugar
3/4 cup cold butter, cubed
½ teaspoon baking powder
½ teaspoon baking soda
½ teaspoon salt
1 egg, lightly beaten
3/4 cup (6 ounces) vanilla yogurt
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

In a large bowl, combine flour and sugar; cut in butter until mixture resembles coarse crumbs. Set aside 1 cup for topping. Sprinkle the baking powder, baking soda and salt over the bowl of remaining crumb mixture to distribute evenly. Mix well. In a measuring cup or small bowl, combine the egg, yogurt and vanilla; stir into batter until smooth. Spread evenly into a greased 9 or 9½ inch springform pan.

CHEESE CAKE LAYER:
1 egg, lightly beaten
8 ounces Mascarpone cheese
zest of 1 lemon
(optional - 1/4 cup sugar)
Combine the egg, zest, Mascarpone cheese (and sugar if desired); spoon in an even layer over batter. Top with an even layer of rhubarb mixture that extend to ½ inch from the edge of the pan (so that sugar in rhubarb sauce does not caramelize and burn to the pan).

STREUSEL TOPPING:
reserved crumb mixture
½ cup chopped pecans
1/4 cup flaked coconut

Add pecans and coconut to reserved crumb mixture; sprinkle over top.

Place springform pan on a cookie sheet in case it leaks. Bake at 350/ for 60-65 minutes or until a
toothpick inserted near the center comes out clean. Cool on a wire rack for 20 minutes; remove sides of pan. Cool completely.

gorack wrote:Our rhubarb is doing great this year. My wife actually made a strawberry, rhubarb pie last night that came out great.

She was asking me what else we can use it in so I told her I'd ask here. Anyone have any interesting ideas? I was actually wondering how substituting it for celery in a chicken soup would work out.

Any ideas we can try would be appreciated. Our 2 plants grow like crazy every year and a lot of it usually goes to waste. We're trying to remedy that this year.

I agree with mrsm about freezing it. I'm not far from Forest Park if you care to share...

We made cardamom ice cream and served it with some strawberry-rhubarb compote. It ended up being really nice, and a good twist from the planned cardamom short cakes which have involved baking on a 100F day.

Thank you all for the suggestions. I'm going to run some of these recipes by my wife and see what she wants to try.

jblth did just give me the thought of trying to incorporate it into Thai ice cream in some way.( I can't do real milk so I have to make my ice cream with coconut milk.)

The thought of substituting if for celery came with the thought of adding a sour element to chicken noodle soup. I like to squeeze lime in some soups so I'm just wondering if I can make that flavor meld somehow. We'll see...

If we end up with and excess this year I'll offer some up on here later in the summer. We've pretty much just let it grow and left it alone since we moved in in 04. This is the first year we decided to harvest it for something.

My rhubarb looks positively awful so far. Some plants that I separated last spring never got as big as they were last summer and seem to be losing ground.

I have recently read that the toxic stuff in black walnuts persists in compost. I threw a lot of black walnuts on the compost pile last summer. If I had to guess, I'd guess that's what may be causing problems for the rhubarb. I think I'll keep black walnuts and leaves out of the compost from now on.

Edit: I should add that soil moisture is not a problem. I've had to do a lot of watering so that seeds sprout but a couple inches down things seem pretty moist.